In recent years, the wireless industry has experienced explosive growth in device capability especially in relation to mobile cellular phones and other handheld wireless devices. Ever increasing computing power, memory and high-end graphic functionalities have accelerated the development of new wireless services. Among such services is the simultaneous delivery of large volumes of multimedia content to a vast numbers of wireless devices.
The large-scale deployment of mass media services/media objects over wireless communication networks may utilize broadcast/multicast network capabilities. Multimedia Broadcast and Multicast Service (MBMS) and Broadcast and Multicast Service (BCMCS), as proposed by telecommunications specifications-setting projects, such as the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and 3rd Generation Partnership Project 2 (3GPP2), as well as, MediaFLO™ technology as developed and available from Qualcomm Incorporated of San Diego, Calif., are targeted towards enabling multimedia content transfer to handheld communication devices over the wireless channel. The MediaFLO™ broadcast network provides services that allow transfer of media objects, such as digital movie clips, sports broadcasts, video clips and music files. Additionally, other broadcast technologies have been implemented globally, for example, Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld (DVB-H) has gained acceptance in Europe, Integrated Services Digital Broadcast-Terrestrial (I-SDB-T) has been standardized in Japan, and Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) has been adopted in China.
Forward Link Only (FLO), the basis for MediaFLO™ is a digital wireless technology that has been developed by an industry-led group of wireless providers. The FLO technology was designed, in one aspect, for a mobile multimedia environment and exhibits performance characteristics suited for use on cellular handsets. It uses advances in coding and interleaving to achieve high-quality reception, both for real-time content streaming and other data services. FLO technology can provide robust mobile performance and high capacity without compromising power consumption. The technology also reduces the network cost of delivering multimedia content by dramatically decreasing the number of transmitters needed to be deployed. In addition, FLO technology-based multimedia transport complements wireless operators' cellular network data and voice services, delivering content to the same cellular handsets used on 3G networks.
The FLO wireless system has been designed to broadcast real time audio and video signals, in addition to, but separate from, non-real time services to mobile users. The respective FLO transmission is carried out using tall and high power transmitters to ensure wide coverage in a given geographical area. Further, it is common to deploy 3-4 transmitters in most markets to ensure that the FLO signal reaches a significant portion of the population in a given market. During the acquisition process of a FLO data packet, several determinations and computations are made to determine such aspects as frequency offsets for the respective wireless receiver. Given the nature of FLO broadcasts that support multimedia data acquisitions, efficient processing of such data and associated overhead information is paramount. For instance, when determining frequency offsets or other parameters, complex processing and determinations are used where determinations of phase and associated angles are employed to facilitate the FLO transmission and reception of data.
Mobile broadcast networks have been designed specifically to provide efficient and economical distribution of multimedia content to wireless devices. Such networks provide the user the ability to “surf” channels of multimedia content on the same handset they traditionally use for cellular voice and data services.
In mobile broadcast networks, such as a MediaFLO™ network and the like, a programming line-up may include real-time streaming video channels capable of delivering live content and non-real-time channels capable of delivering pre-recorded content. Additionally, the programming line-up may be portioned into wide-area content (e.g., national content) and local-area content (e.g. local-market specific content). In this regard, a certain number of real-time streaming video channels may be allocated to wide-area content and a certain number of real-time streaming video channels may be allocated to local-area content. Similarly, a certain number of non-real-time streaming video channels may be allocated to wide-area content and a certain number of non-real-time streaming video channels may be allocated to local-area content. In addition to wide area content and local area content, a large number of Internet Protocol (IP) data channels can be included in the programming line-up. Such channels may include, but are not limited to, traffic information, weather information, news information, financial information and the like.
The local-area content is broadcasted via a Local Operations Infrastructure (LOI), which is a collection of equipment, including a plurality of transmitters, and software deployed in the local area in support of a specific market within the network. A “market” is defined as a geographic area comprised of continuous development, such as a major metropolitan area. Thus, each individual market is supported by a LOI and its associated local multiplex. A grouping or collection of LOIs may form a Wide area Operation Infrastructure (WOI), which is the collection of equipment and software deployed in the wide-area, such as nation-wide, time zone-wide or the like in support of the collection of LOIs. In this regard, the WOI is the distribution point for wide area content, which is communicated to the LOIs and broadcasted via the transmitters dispersed throughout the LOIs.
In many countries, particularly European countries and, to a lesser degree, countries such as the United States and Canada, regional languages prevail. For example, in Italy regional varieties of Italian are prominent throughout the country. In addition, in northern Italy Italian and German are prevalent, while in southern Italy Italian and Sicilian are commonly used. In Canada, French is the prominent language in the province of Quebec while English prevails throughout most other provinces. In the United States, Spanish is prevalent across the southwestern region and southern Florida, while French is common in Louisiana and along the northeastern Canadian border.
If a mobile broadcast system, such as MediaFLO™ DVB-H or the like, chooses to provide wide area content in alternate languages, the content is broadcast across the entire wide area. For example, if the mobile broadcast system chooses to broadcast a national (i.e., wide area) sporting event in the alternate languages of French or Spanish a dedicated wide area physical data channel must be assigned to accommodate each of the chosen alternate languages. Thus, if the mobile broadcast system desires to broadcast the national sporting event in English, French and Spanish, three wide area physical data channels must be allocated to accommodate the three separate audio feeds. The need to allocate separate wide area physical data channels is a result of current broadcast system constraints that only allow for a service classification to include a local area channel or a wide area channel, but not both. In many instances if alternate languages are provided across the entire wide-area, the penetration of such alternate language services is over-broad because the area of desired alternate language does not correspond to the entire wide area, such as a country, time zone or collection of time zones. Additionally, if alternate language services are provided across the entire wide-area, resource allocation is constrained. In a typical mobile broadcast system only a limited number of real-time channels may be allocated to the wide area content. As such, if the system has to allocate additional real-time, wide area channels to accommodate alternate language services, the capacity of the network is compromised because the additional allocated wide area channels could be utilized for other services/programs if they are not needed to support the alternate language service.
Therefore, a need exists to efficiently provide for alternate services in a mobile broadcast network. The desired methods, systems, apparatus and the like should be able to provide alternate services while minimizing the allocation of resources within the mobile broadcast network. As such, the desired methods, systems, apparatus and the like, should be capable of limiting the broadcast of alternate services to only those geographic areas to which the alternate service is relevant.